Public Domain Day or welcome out Sigmund Freud
January first is not only the day for a global hangover. Its also Public Domain Day!
The Public Domain Day is a worldwide celebration of the wealth of human culture and more specifically the expiration of copyright protection of works. This is the way in which copyright works – eventually the term of protection ends and the work becomes free. It belongs to us all.
Every year on New Year’s Day, in fact, due to the expiration of copyright protection terms on works produced by authors who died several decades earlier, thousands of works enter the public domain – that is, their content is no longer owned or controlled by anyone, but it rather becomes a common treasure, available for anyone to freely use for any purpose. (Public Domain Day)
Some of the “big” names coming out this 1 January are
Unfortunately most of the names (long list here) are unknown to most of us. Even the links to wikipedia are empty. Maybe we should use this day to revive their works and bring them back to life. Otherwise the expiration of copyright simply proves that they are no longer relevant to our lives.
Imagine a newspaper website in Sweden. A blogger wishes to use the text and images from the Swedish newspaper’s website to critically comment upon the text and images from the newspaper’s website. According to current EU and Swedish law, what are the limits for the blogger engaging in use of the newspaper’s online content and what constitutes “fair use” thereof? Thank you in advance for you kind response.
It depends. Sorry to be vague. The law allows the commenting of public events so that would support your interpretation. But there are limits to the extent which material can be quoted. Also there may be limitations if the material is behind a paywall and the license has terms limiting your rights then the situation may be different.
Thank you for your answer. The fault is my own. You are not vague for I have failed to provide sufficient information by providing a concrete example. Additionally, I should address the specific limitation you noted regarding the paywall.
Katrineholms Kuriren is the newspaper at issue. I am not a subscriber to the newspaper. What I would like to do is screen capture sections of their politically oriented articles, draw diagrams, and make comments on the sections of the aforementioned political articles. Some of those screen captures might include photos from their site. In terms of my own use of the articles, I would do so to express political grievances and, as necessary, engage in parody along the lines of Aristophanes.
Given the parameters you’ve cited and my purpose with those articles, to what degree am I limited from using their content? In other words, I wish to avoid paying punitive damages for using their content.
Lastly, is there an ombudsperson or organization that can decide upon “fair use” and copyright in Sweden outside of the courts as it applies to issues such as the one above?
Thank you again for your previous response and thank you again in advance for your kind response to what I hope is a more specific query on my part.
Hi, Would you mind if we moved off-blog to better discuss this? My email is klang@ituniv.se Or if you like you can call me 0705 43 22 13. There is no actual ombudsman to call but certain government offices can sometimes answer your questions.
I appreciate your offer to call you or send you an e-mail but I think that the benefits to your readership outweigh everything. For far too long newspapers-think, for example, of the power of William Randolph Hearst-have held too much power. With the digital age, their only power beyond an embedded readership (which can be overcome) is their legal rights so far as copyright law is concerned. In Sweden, it seems-I could be wrong on this-that said rights for newspapers going online is a slippery legal slope and bloggers may find themselves unintentionally intimidated by current Swedish law. So, you see, it’s very important that copyright law as it applies to my question is spelled out here for people to read and understand to somewhat loosen the power of local newspapers now online to shape political discourse. This is particularly the case in Katrineholm, Sweden where one political party has ruled for nearly ninety years in a one newspaper town.